Ep #103: Build Resilience in Kids, Not Perfectionism with Lisa Chan

Have you ever noticed that you’re not a perfect parent? Or that your kids aren’t perfect kids, behaving perfectly all of the time? And then maybe experienced some kind of guilt over that and thought, “Oh my gosh, I’m the problem. I’m the reason my kids are failing.” Oh my goodness, is today’s episode for you. My guest today, Lisa Chan, is here to talk about parenting and behaviors. She was an occupational therapist for 10 years and has now moved into parent coaching. We had the most amazing conversation.

We got into this conversation, this discussion about gentle parenting versus resilience building, right? We’re wanting to build connection with our kids and meet them where they’re at and be able to be emotionally supportive. And then at the same time, there’s this pushback of, are we preparing our kids for the world? Are we helping them be independent and build resilience? And where is the space between that? What is not enough or too much? And as parents, we become completely overwhelmed in this conversation.

And I just loved Lisa’s approach, and she talks about her system of finding the just right spot, which really spoke to me on a level of how we help kids build skill upon skill upon skill and finding where they’re at, right on this emotional spectrum or where they’re at on their executive functioning skills and finding where they’re at and then helping them build skill upon skill upon skill. It was an amazing conversation and I can’t wait for you to hear it. It’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast, where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow, and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves, because, you know what? We all really need and deserve that, too. I am your host, Amy Nielson, let’s get ready to start the show.

Amy: Lisa Chan, welcome to the show.

Lisa: Thank you so much, Amy. Very excited for this conversation.

Amy: I know, I’m so excited. This is like a lot of my favorite things to talk about. I was so fascinated as we’re getting into talking about behaviors and connection and parenting and all this good stuff that I’m so excited to get into. I was so interested to see that your experience was as a pediatric occupational therapist and now you kind of work in child behavior and parenting coach. So tell me about that transition a little bit.

Lisa: Yes, so I did start as a pediatric OT. I was doing that for over a decade and I loved every minute of it. I was working with kids who had different challenges. Some were on the autism spectrum, had ADHD, sensory challenges, executive functioning issues. And I was working in the school to start and I saw a lot of the challenges that the kids were facing.

And so when I was working with them, I was finding that there was just like this huge gap between the service that I was providing at school and then the parents, because the parents were, of course, you’re home with your kids, you’re not there at school with your kids. And so when there’s challenges at school, there’s like this big disconnect happening at home. And a lot of my referrals I was getting was about sensory issues. It was about behaviors and emotional regulation. So kids were just kind of like really getting into big tantrums. We’re not talking like toddler age, this is like school age kids who would really have these big fits and would go from 0 to 100 within seconds because they were really frustrated.

And parents were facing these things at home too. But yet there was no real transition from the stuff that was happening in therapy to home. And I realized that the big missing link here was that parents were not given the guidance on what to actually do. Because even though your kids are at school and they’re experiencing it, even if your kids are at home experiencing it, if you don’t know what to do in that moment, your kids are not going to just remember the thing that they learned with this therapist who they saw one time last week.

So it was just like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what we need to actually propel these kids forward without giving the parents. I mean, I have this strong belief, of course, like parents, you are the number one change agent for your kids. And I know this might sound a little controversial, but it’s not your child’s teacher and it’s not your child’s therapist. It is actually you that has so much power in helping your child learn skills and work on behaviors and work on emotional regulation than you think. And so that’s where I wanted to put all of my focus and that’s why I dove deep into parent coaching. And here I am today.

Amy: Oh, I love that so much because I think there’s so much value in that. And oh, wouldn’t it just be like a beautiful perfect world if we could start connecting more of that, you know, support that kids maybe are getting in school to what’s going on at home. But I think it’s so critical because it starts at home and we have so much impact. We have so much power, which is maybe a little scary sometimes or feels a little overwhelming, but it’s also so encouraging because it means we can do something about it. If we knew what to do, we can do something. And I think that is such an encouraging message.

Lisa: It is. And yes, knowledge helps you to feel empowered. And I think that’s where a lot of parents are right now because they don’t know what exactly is going on with their child, why they’re behaving the way they are. So then they turn to specialists and teachers, educators to kind of do their thing to help their child out. But really, it’s when you actually know what’s going on and what the daily things you can be doing, that’s what’s going to make the most impact on your kids.

So that’s what I’m trying to do here, talk about all the things parents need to know. You finally feel like, okay, I get why my kid is the way they are and I actually can change the way I approach them and change their environment and help them out to actually make them be successful.

Amy: Okay, so let’s just dig in because this is, yeah, we need to know. We need to know how to do this. So where do we start? Like what’s the beginning? What would what’s the first thing you would say to a parent who’s saying, yeah, I need this.

Lisa: The utmost thing, parents, if you feel like you are ready to make that change for yourself first, that’s where you need to start digging deep because we always want to look at our child and go, how can I quote unquote, fix them? But it’s actually the work starts with yourself, looking inwards to what’s been going on within you. And that’s what’s going to ultimately help you to support your child.

So the first place we can start is around emotional regulation. That’s probably my bread and butter here. And it’s one of the biggest challenges today. Kids today are facing so much emotional dysregulation. And I’m honestly seeing more and more. I’ve been hearing it from other therapists and teachers too, like we’re just seeing a lot of kids really struggle with their emotions. And I mean, I can get into all the theories of why I think that is specifically in this generation. But parents are definitely facing a lot of it at home.

Like when it’s time to transition from one activity to the next, when it’s time to get off their screens, when it’s time to go to bed, all those things are big battlefields for parents that they don’t know how to navigate. And you kind of just do what you think you should be doing. Like maybe you got to yell at them. You got to use some punishments and threats to get them to move to the next thing. That’s all the stuff that we were taught ourselves as kids. Like we’re likely in this millennial kind of either Gen X, Gen Z generation and like our parents did that. They used a lot of punishments and threats to get us to move.

So we’re taking that in our parenting and thinking, okay, that’s either how I should do it or you’re going to do the complete opposite because you think, okay, the way my parents did it was completely wrong. I’m going to do the more gentle type of way of parenting. And then you’re just like stuck because you’re now like parenting on opposite extremes. And that’s where parents are getting so lost right now. They don’t know how to handle all the emotions that their kids are having.

Then we internalize like, oh, I’m a problem. I’m the worst parent. I’m the reason why my kid’s doing X, Y and Z. Self-blame, self-blame, guilt, guilt, guilt. And then and then you’re just stuck. You’re then you burn yourself out. So it’s really helping parents to just take a moment, just breathe because we are in a generation of parents right now where we’re the most bombarded with so many opinions and information that we’re actually extremely overwhelmed that we have to for a minute, just like close your eyes and just like let it all go.

And now start to think about what do I really need to focus on? Not what my friend is saying, not what my parents are saying, not, you know, all the people who are telling you all the things you should be doing for your kid. It’s like you got to just take a moment for yourself and ignore all the noise and focus on how am I regulating myself? Am I losing my temper? And I’m screaming at my kid because they just won’t listen to me. And then it’s causing the meltdown cycle that you’re in. Or am I trying to not do the things my parents did and I’m trying to be so soft and go, “Little Jimmy, come on, we’re going to go.” And you get nowhere and then you’re like, you’re just stuck.

Amy: Yes. It’s like a lose. It feels like. Okay, so I love something that I feel like you said in our communication before this episode and you said that parenting is not about perfection, it’s about connection. It’s not about perfection, it’s about connection. I feel like giving ourselves permission to let go of perfection is so powerful in this because if we can just acknowledge that we came from whatever story of parenting we came from with our own parents, we’re trying to create our own. Not only that, we’re very likely parenting with another human that has their whole background and story. And then we’ve got these kids that are all individuals and we’re just trying to figure it out.

And so giving ourselves maybe some grace that we don’t have to be perfect and that our kids can have really beautiful healthy lives even if we aren’t perfect and that gives us space to not have to be perfect, but then to also say, okay, I could work on a little thing. Here’s one thing I’d like to work on. Is there value in just allowing ourselves to let go of that perfectionist kind of thing around parenting?

Lisa: Absolutely. I don’t know where we picked up on this lie that we have to be perfect because it’s setting this unrealistic expectation and causing so much stress. Like the moment you have, not even the moment you have your kid, it’s like the moment you find out you’re pregnant and like there’s like all these expectations of you and you think that I have to be doing X, Y and Z because then that’s what’s going to create the perfect child and then I’ll be the perfect parent. But life isn’t about perfection. We are all imperfect and that’s the beauty of being human. It’s that we are going to make mistakes and we’re going to learn from it. And it’s from those mistakes that teach us life lessons. And it’s the same thing for our kids. We’re not trying to raise perfect kids.

The moment we think we have to be perfect parents, we inevitably put that same pressure on our kids that they have to be perfect too. And think about that perfectionism that you think that you need to be. How much stress is that causing you? And how much is that impacting your mental health? Imagine now you’re putting that on your own child that they have to be perfect. And the thing is like, I mean, I have the perspective of working with kids that have so many different challenges. When you have a child with ADHD and autism and you want them to be perfect, but their brains are wired differently, they’re going to have so much mental like battles in their head because they’re going to think I should be this way, but I’m just not. And that conflict is going to create so much hardship within themselves.

And I’ve seen that so many times. Like kids that were just kind of like given all these expectations and they couldn’t live up to it. And we know that kids with ADHD, they hear like what is it? 90% more negative messages than your average kid by the time they’re 10. And then they’re internalizing all that. Like I’m not perfect. Like I’m hearing all these bad things about me because I’m not able to sit still. I’m not able to focus like that girl over there in my class. And then they’re just going to ruminate on that. And we see as they grow up into their preteens, teenage years, adulthood, they start to manifest all these negative thoughts about themselves. And then they get stuck. Then we see the kid they get stuck, they procrastinate, they can’t seem to get themselves to do things because they’re always worrying that they’re never going to be good enough. But where did that initial message even come from?

Amy: Yeah. Oh, okay. So, so powerful to just be able to let go of this sense of perfectionism. And I think we’re starting to talk about this more and more in some different ways, right? But this idea of like growth mindset, you know, that we don’t have to be perfect now. I feel like that when we have things that didn’t go quite the way we wanted them to, if there’s mistakes or if there’s imperfections, right? It’s information. And then we can just notice that and say, “Oh my goodness, that’s a thing. This might be a thing that’s more challenging for me. This might be a thing that I’m good at. This might be a thing, you know, like I might want to do some more work here or whatever.” And just see it as feedback and as information to help us like know what we want to work on next and those kinds of things as opposed to it being like failure because I think there is so much pressure for parents to be perfect. Like I think especially moms, we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect, which of course directly goes to our kids because if they do something not perfect, isn’t that a reflection on us having not been the perfect parents? Except for that’s crazy and none of that makes any sense. So why are we doing this to ourselves and to our children?

Lisa: Exactly. We’re essentially torturing ourselves for no reason from a message that where did it even come from? And that’s another thing about like really digging deep personally as a parent, like where did that belief come from in the first place that you had to be perfect? Right? Because like a lot of parents, like it really came from your own childhood. Someone in that process taught you that you had to be this perfect child who achieved all these grades that got a certain job and then had your family. And then now you’re here and you’re like, okay, the next thing is I got to be the perfect parent. But that’s not even true.

Amy: It’s not. That’s not real. Okay, so for me, I find that I probably have a very good idea of where, you know, perfection mindset came from, right? And as I’m trying to work through that, I feel like there’s also, I feel like I got value from feeling encouraged to push myself a little bit, to work towards like trying to improve myself. And so I struggle sometimes, I think personally with that balance and I’m guessing some of our listeners might be here too where I don’t want to be a perfectionist. I don’t want to push too hard, right? And at the same time, I do want to be someone who’s encouraging my children to always grow and to learn and to move forward and to, you know, have the challenges that come from movement as opposed to the challenges that come from stagnation or hiding from change and growth and all those things. What do you recommend for the balance between those things and helping us like find that space where we’re not a perfectionist and we’re not like putting that pressure and we’re like finding space and grace for ourselves and our kids and all that stuff, right? But being able to still like try to move forward and encourage growth and healthy behaviors and habit building and all that stuff.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s a really great question. I mean, of course, balance is absolutely necessary. We don’t want to swing on both ends of that spectrum of like perfectionism and also, I guess permissiveness and just kind of letting your kids be. It’s really, we always want our kids to grow, just like ourselves. We should always be growing, improving ourselves. And I think that’s the mindset we need to have. It’s like, it’s a growth mindset for yourself and for your kids. It’s not about your kids have to be perfect getting if it’s like if you’re very academic oriented that they have to get straight A’s all the time. It’s looking at where are they at right now?

If your kid is struggling with a certain aspect of development, maybe it’s with cognitive development. Like they’re struggling with getting things done throughout their day. Perfectionist mentality is like, you should be getting X, Y, and Z done in the morning every single day within 10 minutes. And then that’s your expectation. Well, then is that where your kid is at? If your kid is struggling with initiating tasks because of something we call executive functioning. So they struggle with figuring out the steps to get it done. Well, that’s way too high of an expectation for them.

But then does that mean we just go, no, we don’t have to do anything. My kid struggles and we let them be? Of course not. It’s finding that just right spot where you’re challenging them enough. You’re finding what it is that they can do, not overdoing for them, not completely stepping away and letting them just like figure it out completely on their own. So this is especially true if you have a kid with autism and ADHD, they really struggle with these types of things. And you have to help them find that just right place where you can give them enough. Like just think of it as like you have your hand behind their back. Like you’re there to support them, but you’re not like holding them. You’re not like carrying them the entire way. But you’re also not like hands off, not helping you at all.

You’re there to go figure it out because a lot of those kids, they struggle then without any kind of support. And then that just like snowballs them backwards. And then if you’re like there behind them cradling them, then they become dependent on you and they don’t learn any independent skills. So it’s like giving them just that like little gentle hand there to support them. And you’re scaffolding things in front of them. So if they’re struggling to get through a routine, you’re not like doing it for them. Let’s say the morning routine, that’s a very common one I get all the time. Can’t seem to get my kid through that morning routine. How do I do it? Because or else I’m going to have to pack their bags for them. I’m going to have to pack their lunch bags. I’m going to have to carry their bags to the car for them.

It’s like, can they physically do these things? It’s just that they’re maybe distracted and they’re just having a hard time organizing themselves. So have visual schedules around the house. When they wake up, it’s the first thing they see, what are you have to do? Get your backpack, put it by the door. All right. Next thing, go to the next visual schedule. Get your lunch bag, put it by the door. All right, we’re at the door now. We got our coats on and everything. What do you got to do? Get your lunch bag and your backpack and you’re going to walk it and carry it to the car yourself. It takes a lot more patience. And I think that’s the other thing about when you have too much of a perfectionist mentality as a parent, you tend to have your own time zone, like your timeline. Like you want things done like this. But your kids sometimes go like this. They have a bit of a slower pace and you do have to be patient because if you’re not, you will end up doing the thing for them.

And I know what parents are going to say right now, they’re like, I don’t have the time in the morning. And I totally get that. And this is where you got to get creative. You have to think of other things. Like, you know, at the end of the day, it’s truly, do you want to build your kids’ independence and do you want to build a strong relationship? Then you have to make some sacrifices now. And that might mean you have to wake up 30 minutes earlier to get this thing done so that you have enough buffer time. Because yes, I get it. Like kids can take a very long time if you leave it up to them.

Amy: Oh my goodness. Yes. And I’m like sitting over here nodding because I’m thinking, oh my gosh. I am like a move super fast kind of person. And so when they’re going slower and I’m like, I just like I could just do this so much faster. It’s just and trying to hold myself back and saying that doesn’t like serve them or me long term, right? Got to let them do it. But I do, I have one kid that needs to get up earlier in the morning. It seems so silly to me because I’m like, oh my gosh, if you were just a little more like efficient, you could sleep in, right? But that’s not how they work. They need the time and it causes them stress if they don’t have the time and so that causes emotion and emotional dysregulation in the morning trying to get to school. And I’m like, all of this is solved if this child is able to wake up a half an hour earlier. And then they know exactly what they’re supposed to do. They have a whole system. They just need enough time to do it. It’s so interesting how that can be the solution is just giving them a little bit of time.

Lisa: A lot of this is like a mindset shift. And this is actually what I do a lot to begin with in my parent coaching with parents. It’s helping parents see things through a completely different lens than what you’re used to. Because we are adults and we’ve had like 20, 30 years to figure things out. And we are also now accustomed to a very fast paced world. The way we work, the way you just live, the way you like go to a grocery store, like everything we do as adults, we’re just like boom, boom, boom, boom. Productive, productive, efficient.

And our kids like they come out of the womb, they don’t have that productivity and efficiency. Like they learn it. So it’s like we are functioning at a way faster pace than they are. And the modern world also forces us to do that, but our kids’ brains are not there yet. And so we have to recognize that and accept that in order for us to then nurture our kids in the way that they need to develop properly. Because if we, like you said, force them, we’re adding stress and now like kids are not meant to be stressed. The stress is coming externally from pressures of like us, we got to get to work. So that pressure in our head is then emanating on our kids and we’re going, hurry up, we got to go, we got to go because like we got to get to work, right? We’re just like projecting all of our stresses on our kids unconsciously most of the time. And we got to help ourselves, like we got to realize like we can’t be living like this for our kids because now we are raising them in a very stressful environment and kids do not grow and develop in stress.

Amy: Yeah, their creativity just shuts down and all of those things. Yeah. Okay, so I’m loving this thing you talked about, you use the phrase like finding that just right amount of pushing, right? And I feel like, oh, we’re all just like, oh, just right. How am I supposed to know if they’re just right spot? But I love this idea because in a lot of the work I do, for example, our reading coaching programs or reading programs, right? And we’re training our coaches to find the just right spot for kids. And it doesn’t, you know, when you bring in a kid that’s struggled with reading or whatever, it doesn’t actually matter per se where they are. We’re not worried about that in comparison to, you know, where we want them to be or anything. We just want to know where they are right now because that gives us such good information to know where we want to start and where we want to do the work so we can find that just right spot for them to help them build.

And we know in teaching things like reading and math that there is this really powerful sequence where you’re building skill upon skill upon skill and that sequence matters and you build and build and build on little piece on at a time to help build these incredible skills that are like amazing that we’re doing in our brains, right? But you build them a little piece at a time. And so when you’re talking about this, I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s the same thing. Our brains, we’re just doing the same thing in all these different ways. So we’re building these skills like block by block by block by block by block. So finding that just right spot and then building this sequence of skills where we’re adding on, adding on, adding on, we are building that, you know, resilience, we’re building that independence, we’re building all those things. We just have to do it from where they’re at instead of being like, “Oh my gosh, you’re ready to learn math, let’s go do trigonometry,” you know? So that brings me to this part, which is the power question. How do we know where the just right spot is? Like, how do we find that in like our daily stuff? What’s the just right spot and how do we find it?

Lisa: That’s such a great question because you’re right. Your perspective is very like it’s academic. So it’s, I guess in a way more tangible. But with the everyday stuff, it just kind of feels like this big elephant and you’re like, where do I even begin with this? And the way I always look at it is, first of all, where is your child currently struggling? So I’ll give an example. Let’s say it’s homework time. And every time your kid comes home and you’re like, it’s homework time, you got X, Y and Z to do. And they’re just like refusing and then they eventually come and sit and then they’re off like two seconds later running around and then you’re calling them again, sit down, focus on this. Now, where’s the just right in this? Because it just feels like a chaotic mess of your kid running in 50 million directions, asking for water, asking for a snack and you just can’t get them to sit and focus and do enough stuff.

So you have to really unpack what’s going on. Your child in this instance, they’re struggling with attention and focus. That’s an executive functioning skill. So they’re not able to sustain their attention on that task. They’re getting distracted and pulled in different directions. Now, there also might be sensory things going on. Like if your kid is always getting up, they’re needing sensory input to help them regulate. So their bodies are wanting to move to help them feel good. That’s probably the best way to simply explain. We all want to feel good. It’s just like when you’ve been sitting at your desk for a really long time and then you can feel yourself, you’re like fidgeting, it’s because your body needs that movement. Now for kids, like they do that way more because their bodies are they’re still small, they really need a lot more movement than us as adults. Now if you have a kid that’s really seeking it, they’re going to have a really hard time to sit still. So I’m kind of just painting this picture that there’s so many different key aspects that you need to understand about your kid. It’s not like to really pinpoint like where do I start. It’s more of like a bigger picture of you have to understand what’s going on with your kid in the first place.

There are things about sensory and how they’re processing their world that could be impacting their behavior. There’s things about executive functioning, these cognitive processes that could be affecting their behavior. There’s also emotional regulation. How is their ability to maintain and control their emotions when they’re frustrated? That’s going to affect behavior. So when you can really start to see it under this bigger picture, then we can talk about, okay, then what’s the just right approach to this? Because then if your kid is always running, the solution isn’t to keep screaming, “Jimmy, Jimmy, sit down.” Like you will get nowhere and you will get frustrated. It’s about how do we then find the right amount of time? Like how much can he actually sit at the desk? Like if you’re saying like he’s got to do 30 minutes of work and he’s nowhere near that because his body from a sensory perspective is just like on fire and he wants to move, like you will not get there. You will just end up screaming by the end of that 30 minutes.

So how do we regulate his body before getting to that seated position? How can we give him the input he needs to help his mind and body refocus and feel good? And that’s where a sensory diet will come in place. And then once you can get him sitting there, he’s likely not just going to sit there because kids move, they lose their focus often. And if you have a kid with ADHD, they’re definitely going to be up and moving. So how do we create incremental pieces of time for them to do work? Okay, we’re going to focus on one question. And during this question, you can be on a yoga ball and you could be bouncing while you’re doing this question. And that’s actually going to help them to focus enough to get that question done. Because you might be thinking as a parent like, my kid knows how to solve these things. Like these math problems are not hard for him. It’s just like I can’t get him to just sit and do it.

So it’s really figuring out how do you implement different strategies and accommodations to get them to feel focused enough to get the work done, then you give them a break. You let them move around, do something for two minutes. You have a timer going on so you can keep track of it. Okay, on to the second question. Then they’re able to focus because they got their movement in. And you keep doing that. And I know like this sounds like a lot. If you’re a parent and you’re struggling with, you’re like, I have to schedule all of this. At the beginning, it will always feel the hardest because you do have to be there consistently, be patient with them, scaffold stuff for them.

But the goal in the long run is that your kid will actually learn, these are the strategies that work for me, that I need these breaks. I know how to turn on the timer myself and I can go do X, Y and Z and come back. Like that’s the stuff you’re trying to teach your kids to start doing on their own over time. And that’s how you get to this like just right place for them. They’ll start to know that this is what works for me. And I’m giving them enough of the support through the sensory supports, through executive strategies that is going to give them that push from behind, but you’re not also going, you got 30 minutes to sit at the table and get it done. Like that’s the extreme of perfection. So that’s what one thing could look like. Now, every situation is going to be different and so really pinpointing that just right challenge for them, it will take some expertise. That’s what I’m here for. I help parents to understand what are those missing pieces that they don’t know about their child and how to piece these just right challenges for them.

Amy: Yeah, so I’m like I find it really interesting. We’re going back to almost that piece we were talking about in the beginning. Parenting isn’t about perfection, it’s about connection because I feel like what you’re saying is we need to help our child. We need to understand our child on a very fundamental level and help them understand themselves. So who are they? How do they react to things? What are their challenges? What are their triggers? What are their skills, their skills backpack we talk about in our social emotional learning units that we do for classrooms.

So like what are some different things we can do? And you kind of start building up like this just knowledge base of who am I? How do I react to different things? What are different things that are challenges for me? What are things that I can do that can help to kind of build a skill set or a skills backpack to help them then through whatever future challenges come up. And I find that like so empowering and beautiful. And it brings me to another question that I had that is something that I get pushback on sometimes when we’re talking about things like that. And that is to a parent who would say, “But hey, if we’re just trying to like make everything fit to the child, that’s not how the world works. The world’s not going to just try to fit to my child. So am I weakening my child? Am I not building resilience in them by trying to make everything fit to my kid instead of just saying this is the way the world works, you know, we have to find a way to live in it,” right? So what would you say to someone who brings up that concern?

Lisa: I hear that one a lot as well in my practice. And the truth is, giving your child the support that they need is actually what’s going to help them build that resilience long term. Because if we think that, well yeah, sure, the world is the way it is and they’re not always going to accommodate. But your kid needs to learn now what works for me? What are the tools that I can implement for myself that’s going to help me to function, that’s going to help me to learn and progress in life and help give me the tools like when I feel frustrated, right? Because the world is going to make you feel frustrated. Things are going to be hard in life. So when your kid is feeling frustrated, what are they supposed to do with that? Right? And if you don’t give them the tools now, that’s definitely not going to build any kind of resiliency. And then they’re going to become teens, still struggling, not knowing what to do, how to handle their emotions. They’re not going to know how to do basic things because nobody taught them when they were young. And then now they’re going to go into the real world with zero tools. That’s way worse than thinking, well, no one’s going to accommodate them later in life. Well, they need the tools now in order for them to be able to handle the real world later in life.

Amy: Yeah, I think that’s such an interesting perspective because there may be some extra like support that we’re giving them now, but it’s not in the mindset of I’m just going to carry you until adulthood and then just let you loose on the world and you’re going to not be able to walk, right? It’s like I’m going to give you extra support right now while we figure out how you can overcome your own specific, unique set of challenges or struggles or whatever is going on and build up this like tool set, right? To be able to help you get through whatever comes your way. I think that’s such a beautiful way to describe that and to look at it is that balance between meeting our children where they’re at, finding that just right spot, and then also working towards resilience and these skills that allow them to be able to be such functional, healthy adults that can overcome whatever challenges come later in life. So I think that’s so beautiful. I love the way that you just talked about that.

This has been the most amazing conversation, Lisa. I’m so grateful for you for coming. Do you have any just like last words of like encouragements or thoughts you would leave with our listeners today as they’re trying to figure this out, find that just right spot, that balance that we were talking about that just feels like one of the struggles of parenthood, but like so powerful and like maybe words of encouragement for us as we’re figuring out this piece.

Lisa: Parenting is hard. It really is. And it pushes you to be more than you ever thought you could be. And so if you’re feeling that pressure right now, just know that it’s supposed to be this way. And if you have a child who has challenges, I want to specifically talk to the parents who does have a child with autism or ADHD or any other kind of diagnosis. Parenting your child is a lot harder. And I think parents who are raising that need to hear that because sometimes you easily compare yourself to everyone else and you’re like, why does it always seem so easy for them? But my child is just a little bit more difficult or much more difficult. And the truth is they are because they are experiencing the world very differently than a neurotypical child. The way they process the world through their senses is different. That’s why you might have like a kid who’s just highly sensitive. They avoid things. They’re like always moving around. It is hard to raise a child like that. So you right now have so much resiliency like going through this.

But the other thing is too, you’re not meant to do this by yourself. We don’t have villages anymore and it does feel like parenting now you’re in a silo in isolation trying to do this, but it was never meant to be like that you actually need to start building your community. Like finding people who you feel like you can trust, whether it’s friends and family that you can get some like respite, like someone who can come and just kind of give you a break. And that way you can take care of yourself, go out for, you know, yoga class, just go to a cafe by yourself and read a book. Whatever is the thing that you like to do, like you need to build that into your self-care.

But then also finding people who can help you be more educated about your kid, what’s going on with them, helping you to feel more empowered in raising your child. Those are also very important aspects in your parenting. So start collecting and start like crafting that village in your life because you will need it from now until your kid, you know, like they turn 18, but your kids are still your kids. They’re still going to be there when they’re when they’re in their 20s and 30s. So like you need people and start doing that today because the more you can find them now, the more you’re going to have that support to do this and to know that you’re doing the best you can for your kids.

Amy: I love that. And I think that’s part of that letting go of perfectionism too, when we allow ourselves to bring people into our lives to be a part of our story, to help us, for us to help them, to connect, right? I think it’s letting go of this idea that we’ve got it, that we’re on it, that we’re perfect, we’ve got it all on our own or whatever and just saying, “Oh my gosh, there’s other people like me. It’s not just me and we’re all in this together. We’re figuring it out together. We’re making mistakes. We’re trying again. We’re doing all this. We’re growing together.” And like finding that community, I think can just be so healing and powerful. So I’m so glad you shared that. Lisa, where can we find you if we want to if our listeners want to come and get more information from you and the work that you do? What is the best place to find you?

Lisa: So listeners can find me on my website at TheLisaChan.com. So on there I offer private coaching for parents who want to really understand their kids. Pretty much everything we talked about if you really want to understand how to build just right challenges, you want to know more about sensory and how that’s impacting your child. Those are things that we really get to the heart of in my coaching calls. And I also have a course there on my website too. It’s all about emotional regulation. So if your child’s struggling with that, you want to know more about really the pillars and foundation to it. My course really unpacks all the different elements and what you need to be doing to support your child. People can also find me on different social media platforms. So I’m on Instagram, YouTube, Threads, and Facebook and my handle is Lisa Parent Coach on all four.

Amy: Perfect. Amazing. And we’ll grab the links for those for all of our listeners. We’ll pop those in the podcast notes so that you can just click and make our lives a little bit easier anytime we can do that. That’s so great. So thank you so much, Lisa again for coming today. It’s been a very powerful conversation. I appreciate you coming and sharing your wisdom with us today.

—

Don’t you just love all the fun things we’re learning on this show together? Well, we wanted to give you a chance to practice a little bit of it at home. And so we made you a special freebie just for being a listener here. You can grab it at PlanningPlaytime.com/special-freebie.

So what this freebie is, I’ll tell you, is an amazing alphabet activity that you can start using with your kiddos. And it is based in play and is so fun. You can use dot markers with it. You can use Q-tip painting. You could use circled cereal. There’s all kinds of options. You can print it out today and get started. Just head over to PlanningPlaytime.com/special-freebie, and we’ll send that to you right away.

Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website PlanningPlaytime.com. See you next week.